In a press release from Microsoft today, the company announced that it has acquired Austin-based indie game developer Twisted Pixel, which is known for its XBox Live Arcade games such as Splosion Man, The Maw, and most recently The Gunslinger, according to GamesIndustry.biz (registration required).

Michael Wilford, co-founder and CEO of Twisted Pixel added, “It is really exciting for us to solidify our long-standing relationship with Microsoft Studios, who we consider to be the leader in digital distribution and creating new innovations in gaming like Xbox LIVE and Kinect.”

Analysis: Given Twisted Pixel’s track record for making games exclusively for XBox Live Arcade, this announcement comes as no surprise. Splosion Man‘s becoming such a popular title on the marketplace, enough to spawn a sequel, is evidence enough that they draw in a decent number of sales for the company.

Of course, this also means that the prospect of any of Twisted Pixel’s games coming to PlayStation Network has dropped to zero. There was, however, no indication that Twisted Pixel was even thinking about porting any of their games to Sony’s console; their merger with Microsoft just prevents any thought of that from happening.

We can expect the rest of their games to be solely for Microsoft’s consoles, whether it’s the XBox 360, Games for Windows, or whatever device Microsoft feels they should continue their work on. Of course, they might not be limited, given the fact that Lionhead was able to release Fable III on Valve’s Steam client rather than being limited to Games for Windows. Might this mean Splosion Man could be ported to the PC? Given its popularity, it’s a distinct possibility.